3D visualisation of exoplanetary systems
What might an exoplanetary system look like, with its star and its sometimes numerous planets? To answer this question, Exo3D allows you to view exoplanetary systems from the catalogue in a realistic and educational way.
What can you do with Exo3D?
- Select an exoplanetary system
You can select one of the exoplanetary systems (or the Solar System if you wish to compare). You can choose all systems in the catalogue, provided that the parameters required for visualization are known. - Choose between a realistic or educational 3D representation.
You can choose between:
- See the realistic representation of the system with actual distances and sizes. You will then be able to see the trajectories and, by zooming in sufficiently, you will be able to see the star and the different planets in the system.
- See an educational representation of the system where the distances between objects are still accurate but the sizes of all objects have been increased (a scale is visible on the right of the screen) to make them more easily visible.
- Selecting the time scale
There are two ways to adjust the simulation speed:
- either via the ‘pause’, ‘slow (x0.5)’, ‘normal (x1)’ or ‘fast (x2)’ buttons;
- either by synchronising with a specific exoplanet using a slider. Once synchronised with an exoplanet, it will complete one full revolution around its star in 10 seconds, and the entire simulation will follow this time scale. A time counter shows the number of years, months, and days that have passed since the start of the 3D simulation.
- Display the habitable zone of an exoplanetary system
You can choose to display the system’s Habitable Zone (HZ) as two spheres between which life is possible.
These limits of the HZ are calculated using simplified formulas. In particular, the greenhouse effect ? , which makes Earth habitable, is not taken into account.
The exoplanets will then be highlighted in colour: blue (too cold to support life), red (too hot to support life), green (still within a zone compatible with life) or orange (only part of the orbit is within the zone compatible with life). The orbits themselves are coloured to show which part of the orbit is inside or outside the habitable zone using the same colour code. - Choose from a range of cameras
You can choose one of the three available cameras:
- pointed at the star of the system;
- pointed at a specific planet;
- in free camera mode.
Once the camera has been selected, it can be controlled: - zoom in using the scroll wheel (or by scrolling with two fingers on a touchpad)
- change the up/down orientation by clicking and dragging up/down
- change the right/left orientation (only in free camera mode) with a click-and-drag to the right/left
- move right/left/forward/backward/up/down (only in free camera mode) using the right/left/up/down/page up/page down keys on the keyboard
- Using Exo3D in augmented reality
You can use Exo3D in augmented reality with an Android phone or tablet. To do so, simply open the Exo3D page in the Chrome browser (we are currently testing other browsers), select a system, and once the 3D visualisation is displayed, a glasses icon will appear at the bottom right of the screen. Clicking on this icon will switch the browser to augmented reality mode (the camera is then controlled solely by moving the phone). Not all Android smartphones are compatible with augmented reality, but the vast majority of recent, up-to-date phones are.
- How launch Exo3D?
Exo3D is a simple web page that you can open with your browser. At present, augmented reality navigation is only possible with a Chrome browser or one that uses the Chrome engine, so simply open this page to access the system selection:
